Upcoming This Week – Guest Author and Squatters

I am reviving my Sunday updates this week because I actually have something to report.

First will be part one of my squatter story. It turned out to be a story long enough for two posts because it actually is a story with two parts. I have part one ready to go for tomorrow.

Also this week I am tentatively starting to have author guests again. You guys know I enjoy a good historical romance, and her latest novel has a all the hallmarks of a sweet romance. Just for fun, here’s the blurb without the title, and with all names removed. You can probably Google a few sentences if you are interested:

___ ___ is a woman on the verge of spinsterhood — until the prim and proper Duke of ___ steps in. Her family is pleased with the match, but the duke is not the passionate man ___ craves. Her heart belongs to an alluring, golden-haired gentleman, perfect in every way…except one: he doesn’t exist.

[her sister] is everything a proper, well-brought-up woman should be. She knows her place and understands society’s expectations — which include not being jealous of her sister and not coveting her sister’s suitor. But how can she bear the heartache of watching the only man she loves marry not only her sister, but a woman who doesn’t see past his exterior to the man he is beneath?

This post will be on Wednesday.

And for fun, I’ll leave you with a snip from East of Yesterday. Some of you may remember the days before this particular little modern convenience.

One night in mid-June, during a rare spell of dry weather, Mike spied a dim light on Dora’s back porch, and realized she was sitting out there. With a grin, he thought of an excuse to go outside. He went outside and picked up a trash can where paper wrappings had been accumulating—wax paper from the bread and meat, packing paper used by grocers, plus the odd carton and box—and took it outside to the burning can.

He had been startled to discover—although he should not have been—that trash collection did not exist in the early 20s. Glass milk bottles were reused and paper waste was burned. Food waste was the most difficult to dispose of—dogs were recommended. Otherwise, you simply generated as little trash as possible, kept it in cans with tight-fitting lids, and made frequent trips to the dump. Mike was aghast to learn that the local dump was in fact, the local swamp.

And so once a week or so, he burned the paper trash. The neighbors did the same thing. The smoke had an unexpected benefit of keeping mosquitoes at bay.

He glanced over at Dora as she sat on her back porch, a smoky candle burning next to her. He waved. “Evening Mrs. Latham.”

“Good evening,” she said.

Act nonchalant, he told himself. He walked up to the burning can, dumped in the papers, stuffed them in, struck a match, and lit it. They caught and began to burn rapidly. Dora came up on her side of the fence.

If this brings back memories, then anecdotes are always welcome! I’ll post my own in the comments.

Related

When I was a kid, we used to take periodic trips to the town dump to dispose of things like old Christmas trees. The garbage collection service did not pick up anything large like they do today.

My husband actually remembers his father burning paper waste in his backyard before they made it illegal. Since he is not that much older than me, then the convenience of garbage collection took longer to become widespread than my research indicated. This is why I like anecdotes!

Since my characters would have been born in the 80s, they would not have these memories.